From the Sky News Center. This is Paul Murray Live.
Thank you, Cherry gooda mate, come on into the man cave. Oh no, sooks no left this tonight.
And our special guest, none other than the Great Nigel for us joining us the only time you've seen me on Aussie Telly is only regular appearance here every Tuesday night. Make sure you strap yourself in if you fired up good and ready. Oh yeah, in a second, have a look at some of the stuff in and around question time, not just the stuff you've heard, but some of the strategy behind it that gives us an idea of what they want to.
Do in the next couple of weeks and how they plan to fight the election. And an early shout out.
The first Ourtown of twenty twenty five is in beautiful Bateman's Bay.
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Us in this beautiful regional part of New South Wales, please send me an email Ourtown at sky News dot com.
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Now and fire both are extremes that are affecting different parts of our country. I start with this tonight because it is the greatest urgency for the people living in those areas. Not everything's political, so let's focus in on these people and also look, there is no good news out of these scenarios, but seemingly the situation in Townsville has gotten better. However, the focus now moves a little
further north, about halfway between Townsville and Cans. Don't hit me on the absolute kilometers, but basically halfway the city of Ingham.
Now.
Ingham is a small but beautiful part of Queensland, and it is being absolutely smashed. It has been smashed where it has been cut off. It has no power, There are problems with drinking water, there are mass evacuations, There are all sorts of problems that are.
Happening in that part of Queensland right now. Here are some of the people that are caught up in it. Now, Strength and love to everyone in Ingham tonight.
There's so many properties around here that are so heavily affected by it. In all my life to them, I've never experienced so much water since I've lived here in Engham, I.
Haven't seen anything like it. Bloody, it's hard, it's hard.
A lot of people are doing it tough, very very tough.
I should also say when it comes to Townsville that there have still been plenty of evacuations in evacuation centers. We're not pretending there's no story there. But the epicenter of the problems in North Queensland right now, the most urgent is what is happening right now in and around in Ingham. This is the latest that the Queensland authorities are telling the locals, and I pass on to you tonight by a Sky News Regional Flash or Fox Tell.
We have more police on the ground than possibly ever before. We have almost six hundred police working across the region, assisted bybout one hundred and forty police have been deployed from other areas, coupled with hundreds of SES volunteers, and as we heard earlier, there are hundreds more on the way, not only from down south but from Mina State.
Yeah.
In a second, I'm going to check in with someone in Ingham for the latest information. How the Tan's holding up and whether they are getting the support that they so desperately need. Stick around for that, because obviously, if you're in the middle of it, you desperately want to know. If you, like me, love the people all over this country, particularly regional Australia, well you want to know exactly what help is on its way.
Meantime.
Fires, now, you haven't heard a lot about these, because again it seems like the media can only kind of handle one thing at a time. But we know there have been some fires in around the Grampians in Victoria.
We know there has been.
Several properties and lots of evacuations. This is the latest that we hear from them about the events of the past couple of days. And again I say for the unday time, strength and love to everyone dealing with this stuff.
That's really challenging forested terrain. We've got rocky escarpments, so we can't necessarily just what we traditionally do is use bulldozers to cut lines in around these fires and then do backburning operations or burning out operations to remove the fuel from in front of these fires. That is really difficult.
So we're keeping on all of it. If you are in a position to communicate with us, please do so. Paul It's goodnews dot com. DOUF you would like a message to go out to the rest of the country, to the officials about help that is greater needed. But as always, thanks to everyone who's the volunteer. Thanks to everyone who is in the community helping a neighbor, a stranger, family or friend. And thank you to everyone whose full time job is to go towards people on.
The toughest days of their lives. A grateful nation says thank you.
Of course, I would not expend such grace to the politicians of our country, but specifically the Prime Minister. As I explained in great chapter and verse last night, he wants to pretend that everything is awesome, but the reality is.
Quite the opposite.
Direct question today from Peter Dutton, it basically was along the lines of what I laid out last night, again in great detail, about everything that's actually gone wrong in the past three years. And by that I don't mean stuff that happened two years ago. I'm saying today on February fourth, where Australians are compared to where they.
Were on day one of albert Under this week Albanzi Labor Government. Interest rates have increased twelve times, energy bills have risen by one thousand dollars, living standards have collapsed, twenty seven thousand businesses have gone insolvent, and we're in a record breaking household recession. Will the Prime Minister now apologize for promising Australians they would be better off and admit that they can't afford another three years of this week, Albanzi Labor Government.
All right.
The nature of the way the question was actually asked meant the Prime Minister had well a giant hole that he could jump through, and of course he said, nothing to see here. You should be skipping in the streets and thanking the great Landlord of Australia.
When we came to office.
Really, incomes we're going backwards, Inflation was going up. Rises had a six in front of it, and indeed we had people's living standards going backwards, and we had deficits, a seventy eight billion dollar deficit that we inherited in the March twenty and twenty two budget.
But as we know, the Camera bubble and those who protect the Canberra bubble, or they want to pretend the Prime Minister's version of events that look, it's COVID style where we've been through the worst of Congratulations everyone, you're the new version of the ANZACs because we did this together. Well, it's not going to work because unlike a situation like that, this one is so many more multiple fronts and they are trying to say look over there, while the reality
of the experienced people are having is very different. Put simply in Parliament House, every MP, every senator has got three pay rises in this term. Every public servant has got the biggest pay rise in a decade. They live in very rarefied era and good luck to you if you're on the gravy train. But it is as far away.
From the real world as you can imagine.
Because in the suburbs, and it doesn't matter if we're talking about the suburbs of Perth, Dubbo, Darwin, Lonnie.
Or you pick it where you are, the struggle, the struggle is real.
And I'm going to show you this every night because I want this to be as clear as day as the Prime Minister tries to pretend I was a burning binfire and then we put the burning binfire out and thanks to the hard work of Australians. We've all got through this together. There's not just light at the end of the tunnel. We're out on the other side and
the open fields. The reality in February of twenty and twenty five, after this first term of this awful government, it's lying must be called out because the reality of life under labor is as follows. Thirty percent of homes are in mortgage stress, fifty eight percent of low income households are in rental stress. Twelve interest rate rises have resulted in fourteen thousand, four hundred dollars extra in repayments for every five hundred thousand dollars that you have borrowed.
So double it to twenty eight if you've got a million, and go from there.
Those numbers again, not from some far right wing think tank.
I've got the receipts.
I can gladly send them to anyone who wishes to dispute them. Twenty one months, the average Australian has been in a recession, while the government barely keeps itself alive by borrowing money from China and just hurling it into the air by, among other things, hiring more public servants.
And giving them high pay rises.
So in the real world, it's the lowest living standards since nineteen fifty nine.
Twenty seven. Five hundred and eighty businesses have gone bust since Alberanzi was elected. Three million people are this close to homelessness. Three point seven million go hungry every single week. Yet despite all of those problems, let's bring in another one point three million people to add to the ever
growing issues. And just a reminder to the Prime Minister and the people who seek to give him a free pass between now and the election because they like the arrangements as they currently are, as opposed to a government who promised to make it better being punished because they failed to do so.
In fact, it got worse.
There was an interesting piece of research which came out today about just how little money the average Australian has in the bank. Now think about this. According to Finder Today, one in five Australians have less than one hundred dollars in the bank, not five hundred, not one thousand, one hundred.
Now you think about where that.
Hundred dollars is supposed to stretch until the next time they get a payment, either from the government via welfare or maybe it's the fifteenth of the month when it comes to work. If they're casuals, maybe it's each and every week. That statistic is an indictment on the government because it shows the reality of a society where more people are having double jobs to make ends meet, yet still one in five have less than one hundred dollars in the bank. These are the people who are frightened
if something happens to the fridge. These are the people who are frightened if the head gasket in the car that they already fixed last year is going to go again. These are the people who will simply go without in order to make it through to the next day. Supposedly the people that the bloke from the housing commissioned stock would remember, but of course he does not. He just uses those people as a prop, those people as a
prop to say, I am of this flock. But in terms of how he lives his life he of course six hundred thousand dollars. Of course the Prime Minister should be paid a significant amount of money that as an example of the life lived. Come on the taxpayer funded mansion. The staff everywhere, let alone the people that, as I say, every person in the Parliament.
The life of upgrade Elbow is.
A very very long way away from the story of which he.
Was most famous for. Good luck to him.
He's done whatever he can to get to the place that he always dreamed of, that being the Lodge. But that is about as far away from the real world as possible for any Australian. And good luck having this bloke and the little dab too to be able to relate to the average Australian. When yes, he has been able to play the system. That means he's got a
bunch of investment properties. So on top of his six hundred thousand, on top of his lifetime pension, on top of the two taxpayer funded mansions, his property portfolio sends him one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in rent each every year. So good luck telling everything that everyone that everything is awesome, because the reality in the Urbs is it ain't and it got worse under your leadership. It got worse because of your leadership. And they will send
a message. And I know this because the people who are trying to find the way to build the case for the benefit of the doubt the people who will gladly reprint all the stuff that you've got in the dirt unit, which has produced very little, by the way, when it comes to Peter Dutton and trying to scare
people with ads, even on taxpayer television. When they sent a reporter out into the western suburbs of Sydney on a field trip, presumably not many people who work for Channel two live in this part of the world.
Maybe this bloke did, Maybe he knew the right people to talk to.
He went to the seat of Wherrerower where Awer in Sydney's West is one the Labour parties held onto for a bloody long time, but its margins have been being eaten away.
It's now at about five percent.
It would be one of the seats that statistically could be up for grabs at this election. And believe it or not, it was breaking news on four Corners last night what I have been telling you every night and you have been living for three years under this bloke. But they did tell the part of the country that would like to think it's not a problem that it is.
For the first time.
Four Corners reveals that in eighty two percent of seats most households are in financial stress, astonishingly up from just eight percent three years ago. That's where paychecks barely cover basic living expenses and WHEREWA has the second highest level of financial stress in Australia.
It's up to the opposition to make the case that it is time not just to break up with the people you've always voted for, but that there is a better plan They will achieve or not that in the next few weeks and months.
But people are ready.
They are ready to for the first time for the party they have never voted for, similar to Boris Johnson, similar to Donald Trump. May be so when it comes to the Liberal Party and Peter Darton, here's somebody who you presume by the way they were presented in the show, who'd been a regular labor voter no more in where or were for this lady.
They're seeing that, you know, crime has changed, that it's not the same place where they grew up, where everyone got along, and it is becoming overpopulated, but there's not enough infrastructure and supports out there to help maintain it. And there's like some very different ideas are kind of getting all mixed together and there's no kind of unity for.
Like the Australian values. You see that that's we're.
Losing a bit of that. We're overready for the labor I don't think so.
Yeah, and why not.
Because we want to set your change and we think that's probably the way the way that that can happen, and that maybe the government starts looking at our area as an area that isn't just going to sit around and let what's happening to it happen.
They even found an academic, yes, an academic who said that Western Sydney is one.
Of the parts of Australia that might be a little dut and curious. We will all find out together.
But the Prime Minister needs to change his tune if he thinks that he's going to be able to sit inside the camper bubble where everyone's got three pay prices on the floor of Parliament and all the staff, all the rest of it, good luck because the people who are watching on and to be honest, most of them are not white because they've had enough of this bloke. They are not going to fall for it. That's all
wait and see. But certainly one of the other things that is really frustrating people is that the system under which that we work, and by that I mean a system that finds different ways to squeeze us all for cash each and every day. Now, I've spoken at great length and I try to show you that reports the data, all the rest of it. Now, it doesn't mean we're perfect, doesn't mean people are going to come for us. Absolutely, if we have a swing, they're going to have a
swing back. You get how this works, right, But one of the things that I've worked out that is one of the most effective things that I can do as a person who thinks the country is in the wrong direction and we need to make a change. A way is to arm you with the information to be able to have the arguments that may well convince people or maybe they see the video where they watch the show.
Certainly I would like that. But let's talk about tax Let's talk about where the government gets its money from.
Well, as I've told you many times, it's you.
It's people working, it's the people paying as they go each and every month. When it comes to taxation, all of that has increased under this government. The dirty little side taxes like booze and cigarettes and petrol, all of those again at record highs under this government. And then of course the cost of everything once you get to a shop is nothing to do with tax, but it means that what little money you have, you're very careful with it.
And when there is such a big part of.
Your income going to the government, you want to make sure that they are actually taking care of people. And if three point seven million people don't know where the food's going to come from by the end of the week, three million people are this close to homelessness. Even the ABC telling you what, almost ninety percent of homes in the key electorates are in financial stress. No one is going to buy that this government has done well with the money that they get.
Now.
I don't know where this sits on the political spectrum, and sometimes I fail the purity test of being in this pocket or that pocket, or singing from this song sheet or whatever. I am who I am, And we've been mates for a long time. And I don't know whether this appeals to one side of politics more than the other. But this that I'm about to show you has to change. This is what Australians have had enough of.
Now.
For some that might be right wing economic populism that they're going to be drawn to. For others, it's going to be far left wing economic populism. But tell me if you're okay with this system. The federal government, according to Budget Paper number one, last year, it got six hundred and fifty eight billion.
Dollars in revenue. Forty seven billions dollars of that is axis tax. Like I said, it's a beer and petrol and cigarettes, even clothing and footwear. The GST eighty seven billion dollars. Now that money basically is cutoff, doesn't get hived off to the federal government, but goes back to the states.
And the states always are asking for more money.
They'd be the ones who'd love an increase in the GST because that number would clearly go up in the revenue that would come to them. But to be the federal government that would end up copying the politics for that quote unquote increase in tax. Of the six hundred and fifty eight b for billion dollars the federal government was expecting in revenue, one hundred and thirty nine billion dollars of that is company tax. And the single greater source of the three six hundred and fifty eight billion
dollars in revenue is personal income tax. Pay as you go is now three hundred and twenty six B for billion dollars. Do the sums on how many multiples that is of beer and petrol, how many multiples that is of company tax? How many multiples that is of the GST? And we have a system that is broken. So when they turn around and say, well, we deserve you know, we deserve a pat on the back because too little,
too late tax cuts. Remember the overall tax cut per week for somebody earning about forty five thousand dollars to people in safe places like where are what?
Fourteen bucks? Fourteen dollars?
And when everything else was going up in prices, including of course power. But it wasn't that supposed to be fixed by now all of that has not just been gobbled up. It was never noticed. It did not even touch the middle, let alone the sides of the problem. That in part is why the Prime Minister is where he is. And guess what I've got even more bad news for because the latest polling about the Prime Minister
and the opposition leader is fascinating to watch. As always, I like that I go into the detail of or I am able to give you the detail of the polling information about the Prime Minister, about the opposition leader that comes to us from the turbul Times.
But you know what the headlines say.
The Albernezi says that he's going to be a majority government, but the reality.
Is probably not going to happen.
Why because even in the Guardian that as I said, they're going to spin. They don't spin the numbers, but they spin the tale of the numbers. So this is where they were a couple of weeks ago that the voters were more positive. Now they were like one two points more positive. Okay, but you know he's in trouble when this is the best that the joint that his press secretary used to work for can spin. On today's pole, more voters say Anthony Aberneze is out of touch with
ordinary Australians than Peter Dunton. Oh I imagine the joy they had trying to sub that headline. That's the best thing they could put on it for the Prime minister. Why because in the Essential poll today, sixty three percent of people say the Prime Minister is out of touch, Fifty one percent of people say that he doesn't handle pressure. Only forty three percent of people think that he's decisive.
Only forty two percent believe that he is trustworthy, and only twenty seven percent think that he's got a better get up and go a bit of aggression, bit of agro in him. And by that I don't just mean fighting Tories, I mean fighting for the very people who supposedly he is of who he represents. But i'd upgrade he's about as far off the mark as you could
possibly imagine. I also want to say something here about politics when it comes to Australia and people on the conservative side of politics who would desperately love you know, why can't we have a Trump right? Why can't dunt just basically click do a Trump and therefore we would get the same result. Now you know how much I love Trump, I've got a bit to say in a moment about just how much is winning in the past twenty four hours.
And it has actually been phenomenal, the wins that he has had.
In just the first two weeks, two weeks of his presidency truly transformational stuff. But we do have to tempest some expectations about what the alternative Prime minister can possibly do in terms of replicating the language, the decision making
and many other things to do with DJT. But of course it won't stop much of the left wing media trying to link any decision that is made in campaign style, policy or rhetoric, oh to Trumpian because you know ulgad boga Trump bad orange man, bad bald man, even worse.
You get it the New York Times. Who in the New York Times is reading about Australian politics. But anyway, Australia's top conservative follows Trump's playbook in taxpayer TV and radio, mirroring Trump dunn'ts and aim at diversity in the nine papers straight from the Trump playbook. You see this over and over and over again. And any attempt to grain in the spending or to change the way that taxation works, well,
of course that is just Elon Musk right. Any how many times do you see headlines or versions of this? You know you sent a price with her new job that somehow all of this. And we saw today the Business Council of Australia, who by the way, were standing behind the Prime Minister clapping him on while he made the choices about forty three percent of one percent of carbon emissions and eighty something percent of power lines and
power to come from renewable energy. They are now saying that Australia needs a Musk style agenda The Guardian again, the Turnbull Times. I say that because, of course he helped will it into action. Dunton wants to slash thousands of government jobs and an Elon must style cruise. Sayed Now, the reason I mention all of this is because I love what's happening in the United States right now. I like them rather than incremental change.
And oh what happens if we make a really big decision?
Well, have we got enough political who cares?
You've got the power ram change change, chain change.
Now for those who didn't vote for it.
They go, oh, this guy's falling in destruction. Guess what he was hired to do. To break what doesn't work and to rebuild something that is better. That's why it works in the United States. But why Australia can't have a Trump is a whole bunch of reasons. But I want to explain this to people because inevitably I get asked, hey, why can't we all it wouldn't your love in US
Ossie Trump? Yeah, of course, but we don't have power in Australia that exists in one person and one office in the United States, they have a thing called executive power, the authority that comes to the presidency. Remember, of course, you can have a bill in the lower House that's passed by the upper House. It's not law until the
president signs it or can veto it. There's also about four thousand jobs in the American government which every time there is a new president, they are wiped and they are reset with the people whom the president approves off. About twelve hundred of those need to go through the Senate process. But put simply, rather than a public service where everyone in it has been there for a very long time and they know at the end of the day they can probably slow play the ball. Wait, you
out leak to the opposition. Well, in America, basically the whole top is ripped off these organizations and a new one is put on top. That is not our system that we have in Australia. I personally think that it would be much more efficient for all governments of all stripes at all times to have more opportunities to be able to make a dramatic change at the top developments of the public service, to be able to make appointments
that will carry out their agenda. And then sure they ever lose power, guess what they would lose that as well. The next team would be able to come in, but we would be able to avoid the scenario that often plays out in Australia, which is that the government that's about to go out the back door feels as many positions as possible on like five year contracts for people who they know are going to create trouble for the government that is coming in. That's why it's difficult, if
not impossible, for the trumpy thing to happen here. The second thing at the very heart of the Trump agenda in the first term, and even sharper focus in the second is that for every new regulation that is introduced, they have to get rid of at least two pieces of regulation that already exists. In Australia, we seem to have this idea that the way that the system works or the laws works, should just be like sediment at the bottom of the ocean. You can't possibly undo what the government.
Too before you did.
Instead of none of you've just got to accept that that's the way things are. You must absolutely deliver on the promises of long gone prime ministers, or somehow you're involved in some sort of revolution or cut cut cut cut cart. And the third reason why in Australia we wouldn't be able to have the same type of situation the place out of the United States is that there is no alternative economy now in the United States because
the population is so big. Literally, there are mobile phone companies that will exclusively market to a certain political section of America. Literally, I think it's called Patriot Mobile. There are banks that are more open and favorable to one side of the country than the other. There's somewhere to go when it's not your mob that's in charge in this country. But business went woke a long time ago.
They need to reverse it because they need to reconnect with their customer base, something that I make cost Samarus wrote about quite interestingly today in the Financial Review. Couses the bloke who runs the Red Bridge organization. He'll be with us each and every Sunday, or is offside of Steve, who are great insights into the data of where the country is right now. He of course used to work for the Labour Party, so he'll obviously at times find a way to give them the benefit of the doubt.
But still for the past twenty years, businesses have been aligned when it comes to their strategies with the values of the professional class, focusing on diversity programs, climate policies, progressive branding. While these initiatives have resonated with a stable and affluent demographic, teals they risk alienating a growing and increasingly vocal group of new swinging voters.
See the lady that I just showed you before in.
Where or one.
This volatile demographic, particularly in the outer suburbs and regional areas, views the corporate gestures is out of touch with their economic realities. For them, priorities such as job security, cost of living, community investment far out weigh the displays of virtue signaling last one. As their political influence grows, business
risks becoming simple of elite neglect. The backlash against woke capitalism is already evident in the public boycotts and political campaigns, and underscoring the urgent need for companies to reassess their priorities. Plenty more where that came from. As we roll on here tonight on pal Murray Life. But let's go back to the scenario that's playing out in North Queensland right now, specifically in Ingham and their mayor joins us right now. Raymond jo is his name, and he joins us now.
Nice to see you, mate. Forgive me about the past couple of days. What we're seeing looks like it's bloody awful. Thinks slightly better or slightly worse tonight. Looking a bit better there, Paul, first, wee mate. Sorry I didn't shave for you, mate, I haven't had much time.
Don't worry. I didn't shave for you either.
It's all good now, feeling a bit more relaxed. The river is showing signs of receding finally, So just to put it all in perspective, we've had about seventeen hundred millimeters of rain in the last seven days, and essentially our Shire, which sits between Towns and kens three thousand square klomate, we probably had about three quarters of it underwater. Blind blood massive flood. We haven't seen floods like this since nineteen sixty seven. So yeah, it was a big
shock to everybody. But fortunately we think that the water is receding.
What are some of the little acts of kindness that you've seen over the past few days. You've seen it from people with a teeny helping somebody else out to somebody in a uniform. But when you think back over how your community and the people who've come to help your community have reacted in the past few days, what's some of the stuff that jumps to mind for you.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're quite lucky that we've got a caring community. And as you as you pointed out, you know, people in tennees helping out keep their neighbors in a bit of distress as the waters.
Was coming up.
We've had a lot of good work done by Swift Water Rescue, your crews and the SEES volunteers. Without them, we would have been in a lot of strife. But the neighbors all chipping in and also just the information sharing between the neighbors as the water was coming up. You know, we have a lot of new people in town and the old people of the town. You know, we're telling them what to expect, where the water would
come from, how hi it might go. But yeah, everyone got surprised about the extent of water that we did. So we do have a good community. We have a resilient community. They're out there straight away now as soon as the water starts receding, they're out there, you know, starting to clean down, so I chase the water out of town, helping their neighbors with the debris and that taking the rubbish out to the road. So yeah, it's a good community. Actually, love our community. I love a
picture that I saw somewhere. Forgive me if I mispronounced, I'm probably going to the hotel Yuramo?
Is that it?
Yeah?
And they had how do I pronounce that properly? Durama? There you go.
That don't help with it anyway, Sorry, pol Yeah, I made it all the way through year twelve, made public education.
It just does me so well every day. I love this picture.
There's a picture there, and I'm sorry I don't have the ability to shout right now, but basically it is the pub, water right up to it, tinnies all lined up at the front like a bunch of horses turning up, you know in the gold Rush. Yet the pub, even when parts of it had water lapping away there they are water up to the ankles, but they're still turning the sausages and they're still serving the beers. I just love that wherever the high spot was, turn up and we'll take.
Care of you.
Yeah, that's actually you remote that's in our neighbor in council.
Are further up the road.
But yeah, we've got similar we've got similar situations, similar similar positions where all the locals go to in time of need.
And yeah, the.
Watering points are the points to shelter them. Yes, for many different reasons for the good people in North Queen's Land. Now let's talk about the next little while and inevitable cleanups that have to take place here because as a council council, as the regional council, every dollar you're getting in rates, you're spending on everything from fixing potholes to
picking up garbage, all the rest of it. Right, what do you need when inevitably there's an awful lot of stuff to gurney, there's a lot of stuff to clean up, and there's maybe extra bridges and roads that need to be fixed. And is there an ability for you to pick up the phone of the premiere down in Brisbane and something happens or are we going to be getting complaints from you in six months time that what they
promised at the photo op never happened. Now, look, you know I have to say we've got a very good state government, and we've got a very good premier. Now that Premier has been talking to us every single day since this event started, not just me, everyone up the coast so and you know they're on board. They've thrown their resources at us. We've had so many state resources you are looking after us since it started that I've never ever seen.
It like this before.
As we go forward, obviously as the water goes down, we'll do our assessments and we'll see what the infrastructure damages. And then we also in Queensland, we're pretty lucky. We've got a good authority called the Queensland Reconstruction Authority that comes on boards and helps us. Now I can say this with a lot of conference. So just to give you an idea this flooding, although the extent of the flooding this time around was quite large. You know, we
get a flood every year. The Herbert River, which is our main river system through the inch Brook, it drains seventy two percent of the wet tropics. So that gives you an idea how much water comes out of way.
So you know this is not our first rodeo port so and but the Queensland government sits with us there with Queensland Reconstruction Authority, the assessments are done, the other money comes through, the work gets done and you know, actually, I don't want to say this to be too callous, but you know, flooding is pretty good for us because it creates a lot of work. It creates a lot of employment. We're always fixing a road or some infrastructure
that's damaged in the flood. So you know we've got you know, a big turnover happening with it, right.
I love it Raymond, that you're not you know, you're not going to build the lily. If there's a silver lining, let's go for it. As a Cowboys fan, you'd be hoping they're going to win the camp as much as your town's going to get over and get over things and get back on track in the next little while.
I'm assuming that that's the Cowboys on you chest there, isn't it.
Yeah?
Yeah, boys, this is boy's going to say, mate, gee sid put you know, rip my tongue out if it was otherwise all the best mate to everyone who's in the area. And yeah, we'll check back in a couple of weeks time. Thanks mate. How good is it that's the top of me. You want, right, someone who's not going to pump it up and carry on other guy's falling in. Yes, okay, trouble, We've haut trouble. This how we felt fixed it. This is how we dealt with it. This is how you know there is the slight positive
in and around it. Good stuff to hear. All right again, Strength and love to everyone dealing with all of that, as well as the issues that are going to continue on up and down parts in North Quoinslane can always send me in them my pullets gonews dot com dot are.
You now in a second? There are people who want us.
To change lots of laws around the country to stop hate speech. I understand why, but I'm going to whine and warn you why that's not a great idea. Next, let me remind you we are coming to Bateman's Bay. Sorry, I made a deal which camera to start on. Apologies how other things in my head. So we're coming to Batman's Bay. We're looking forward to being there in a couple of weeks time. I want to give it another
shout out because I want to fill this room. Okay, So if you are anywhere in and around the South coast. You would like to see the show live, I promise you the biggest room that we can have fun in in and around Bateman's Bay. We will do so Sunday, the twenty third of February. You know the way I want this to go, which is I want the people who watch the show, like the show, to be the first people to respond to say they are coming to the show.
Now.
Even if you're somebody who thinks you can bring ten friends, don't send me an email and say, oh, yeah, Paul, I left ten ticket. No, No, this is for a couple of people, you know, four people that sort of thing.
Right, we reckon We can fill the joint. I honestly think we can do so. And we're going to be doing something very special in Bateman's Bay at the same time. So send me an email tonight if you can get there camera. Maybe make your way across like you normally do in your summer holidays, but you'll be sticking around on a Sunday night, Sunday the twenty third.
Send me an email out tent's goingews dot com.
That are you so back to the camera that I thought that I got confused with before? Now you know about the anti Semitic attacks that have been going on too long in this country, and you also know that there's not a day that goes by where there's not a big conversation about this. And there was some pretty amazing stuff that I've got to say came up in again some polling that.
I'll discuss on this issue.
The a Legra spender, who represents one of the areas that have been the targets of these disgraceful acts, well, she of course has been relatively low profile through all of this, but she's coming out now and she's saying that she needs to know we should be strengthening the hate speech laws to cover serious vilification. This in part, is her explaining why she thinks that hates speech laws nationwide should be tightened up.
What I'm seeking to do in this legisation is to put it is to include an offense for serious vilification is part of the original drafting. It has been removed. I'm seeking to bring it back again.
As for her partis into Allen in Victoria is also considering issues when it comes to hate laws. Jewish organizations have asked for those hate laws to be beefed up in New South Wales. There is also a conversation in and around all of that. In fact, the Victorian lives though, they've got a shopping list of what they'd like to tighten up when it comes to hate speech laws.
Seeing flags for her muss around Victoria is not something anyone. Free speech I support is given people the opportunity to have their say where it's fair and it's not hate. But we want to make sure that if we're bringing in legislation that we're not giving those protests the right to use an exemption which will end up in court hasn't been tried as yet, and the government can't even guarantee that it won't rule out anti Semitic behavi you're seeing now.
I mentioned some polling before. There was very interesting polling.
That basically showed that it was the low forties of people who believe that antisemitism is a major issue in.
The Australia Right now.
There was something in and around again about the same number who believe that it is a significant issue. But disgracefully, there was polling that came out today that showed that in certain sections of the community they don't believe there's any problem now the idea that you wouldn't think there's any problem here when childcare centers the caravan with the explosives, let alone, how many times do you need to say see if to not conclude that there is an obvious targeted problem here.
The issue that I have, though, is how we respond to these things.
Now, for very obvious reasons, we need to have a society that will not cop this, that will do every and anything in its power to stamp this stuff out. But I get nervous around the hate speech stuff. Not because I want to protect those who would consider themselves in business or wanting to do said things, say it because you don't know what some of the unintended consequences are.
You might think that you've set up this whole sort of legal trap for people that clearly is about people who mean you harm, and therefore those people would be
treated at the most serious end of the offenses. My issue with things that are at times as vague as this is that I don't want to see a scenario when somebody is able to use these laws to punish somebody for what they perceive to be hate speech but was never intended to clearly be something that was offensive Now, if you're writing f the you meant to do it.
But if you made a comment about someone because of something they did, but because of who someone is, they're able to have access to these laws to be able to go after you for what you said about their actions, and I mean non criminal actions. You might just disagree with a whole series of decisions that they've made, political or otherwise, would they be able to use this legislation.
I don't know, not a lawyer, not even a Bush lawyer, but it is something that always concerns me that we're going to turn around here, because there has to remain a legal standard about not just something someone finds offensive, but there also has to be an intent for somebody
to go out and offend to be hateful. Because if it is just only ever in the eye of the beholder of the person who is the victim of this or who will put themselves forward as the victim of this, then I think we're going to be in a place where most Australians wouldn't be comfortable. But it feels like there is one march and one march only that is
being accepted when it comes to to this legislation. So I say travel cautiously, double check the dots and maybe even put a sunset clause in where after two years of the laws there's an opportunity to renew them or to change them. That way, if somebody has misused the laws, you have an opportunity to change it right quick break.
Back with more.
Nigel Farras next here on Paul Murray Life. Speaking of the floods, could this be the most Australian thing you've ever seen?
And wear Australians.
Just stop there?
Only in townsh guys, check this out?
This is that the weir?
No, it's not that, the damn the you're this guy?
Wow?
Niger Frars joins us from London. You know when there's flooding in the UK, are they catching fish with their bare hands?
Are they just going into.
The rivers and grabbing the biggest one they can and throwing it over the shoulder or do we just leave that to the outer rims?
Oh, I think we'll leave that to you guys. The sad thing is and I kind of used to watch rex Hunt, that great Australian fisherman, and I've got to be honest, I'm a big rex Hunt fan.
You've got better fish than we've got. I'd a met that.
All right, far enough, fair enough, all right, let's talk about a huge event that's coming up for Reform. You are going to hold the biggest rally in UK political history. How many people were and you expect they're going to turn up? Have they promised? Have they bought the tickets? Tell us about what you're planning.
Yeah, I mean normally when political parties in Britain have conferences, they might get three.
Thousand, they might on a very big day get four thousand, but that's about it.
And we've got a very very enthusiastic new memberships.
So we've booked a big venue in Birmingham.
It'll be the launch of our local election campaign as the English counties go to vote on May the first, and we have mayors being contested in many parts of the country. So yeah, we're going to get five figures plus turning up and the others Labor and Conservative can't do that. There's no energy, there's no enthusiasm, and at the moment Reform is on a bit of a role. We're feeling very optimistic about things.
I was talking before about a caution or maybe a problem that exists in our parliamentary systems. That means we can't have the full Trump right, We don't have the executive power, we don't have as many people that are appointed to governments. There's not entirely the alternative economy or conservative economy that exists in things like the United States.
But back bye bye.
But we can have leaders like yourself who have the same want to get on with it. And hasn't it been amazing the first two weeks of Trump. The first two weeks of Trump, it's a dozen things a day and it's not chaos. It's like they have done their homework in the four years that they were out and they didn't just come up with what do we want to do? But how are we going to do it?
And everything from problems in the FBI to the trade scenario where basically without firing a shot, he's got ten thousand troops that Mexico is going to put on the board at the southern border, and effectiveness in the relationship with Canada. This is the future of the type of leadership that people want, which is not oh, incremental change, no no, no, no, fix it.
Yeah no, I mean right across the West, what people want is real genuine radical change because the sort of global estatus quo just hasn't helped anybody. But I know you're right to put your finger on something that the American president does have executive powers and also the ability through patronage to put people into powers a position in a way that doesn't happen in Australia and doesn't happen here.
But but if.
You have a prime minister who is committed to a radical agenda, with a party behind them in Parliament that's in a majority and is you can still do it. I'm thinking back forty years to the early eighties. Margaret Thatcher had everybody against her, the BBC, the trade unions, you name it. Everybody was against her, the civil service. But she was able because she had a united Party behind her to put in place some radical, though painful
in the short term changes. So it can be done in our countries, not as quickly as America, but we do need unity of purpose within our parties.
But also fascinating to think about as well, the types of things that are being confronted here. Now you know, again a week ago, but still how important When Trump's talking about d banking, all right, and I was watching a conversation amongst a bunch of people obsessing about politics in the United States from the United States, and.
They were all kind of shocked. What's he talking about?
This thing that's just being pulled out out of his backside?
So blind?
So blind are some of the people who parade as the professionals who should know all sides to what you went through in the UK that plenty have gone through.
In the US.
Yeah, my D banking scandal sort of dominated the front pages for about two weeks.
I mean it was as if the.
Whole banking industry were trying to drive me out of the country.
It was astonishing. I won in the end, and the.
Chief executive of Britain's biggest bank had to resign, the chief executive subsidiary had to resign. So there were two pretty good scalps that I was pleased with. But no, this is happening, not just here, it's happening. And by the way, D banking is now in the Oxford English Dictionary thanks to me, I've changed the language.
I'm thrilled.
So what these commentators in America are saying, oh, we've never heard of D banking, Well to tell me what it's in the OED and Trump is going to fight very hard on this one too. You see, Ultimately, the more digitized we become, you can't survive or exist without bank accounts or means of payment. If you think about it, it's the ultimate form of cancel culture. And it must be four everywhere.
Yeah, I mean in my last minute here, but well done on the pole. You're number one at twenty five, Labour twenty four, Conservatives twenty one.
Then it's four ahen and nine. Mate. We begin where we end, where we begin.
The joint is wrapping itself around a movement for change.
Absolutely, and you know what, the consensus we've had for years doesn't work. Ordinary folk get poorer, our borders are open, excess migration changes our communities. People want strong, patriotic, real leadership that actually cares about ordinary people, not just the big corporates.
It's almost like you've had to time out before.
Thank you so much, Nigel to appreciate it. He knows what it's like when the clock and they're deafening in the ear that it's time to go.
We'll talk again next week, Thank you mate. Well see you again tomorrow night, where our special guest is the Wonderful Megan Killy Late debate next on Sky News